Dust Dive, The

Claws of Light

Label: Own Records Country: Belgium

"Weird, warm, and enigmatic, the Dust Dive returns from another long field trip with Claws of Light, the captivating follow-up to their critically acclaimed debut, Asleep or Awake Walk. "Like modern Huck Finn tales where the Dionysian clashes with the suburban" (in the words of D. Shawn Bosler of The Village Voice), the Brooklyn-based trio's new covey of songs soars with gritty equanimity and uncommonly vivid verse, evoking an urban-pastoral world that is mutually arcadian and trashy, dreamy and deadpan, magical and everyday. Claws of Light also maps a wild and curiously deranged sonic landscape, spanning from punk to classical, pre-war American folk to psych, gypsy violin to naturalist field recordings, and classic rock to outsider Americana. When asked to describe their sound, Dust Dive organist Ken Switzer, who spent much of his youth in the backwoods of rural western Massachusetts, offers up the label "experimental campfire music."

Dust Dive multi-instrumentalist Laura Ortman (an accomplished film-soundtrack composer, session violinist and member of the White Mountain Apache tribe) describes Claws as "party songs without the party music." The method of recording this album surely fueled the party. In an effort to preserve their relaxed homegrown ambience, the Dust Dive asked Sebadoh and Fiery Furnaces member and veteran guerilla engineer Jason Loewenstein to record the songs at the band's namesake fort*-a cozy half-railroad apartment located on Flatbush Avenue. (Chief vocalist/lyricist and Kansas native Bryan Zimmerman calls Brooklyn's strange and colorful thoroughfare "our river.") Throughout last autumn and winter, Loewenstein dove in and spent weekends recording Claws within a labyrinth of acoustic forts rigged from scrapwood and blankets. Air-drumming during playbacks eventually compelled him to pick up his sticks and crown the record with drums on the leadoff "Babyface in a Pickup Truck," as well as "Rope Swing 2000" and "Green River."

*As an added bonus, Claws of Light also features one track immaculately recorded and mixed by [our own] Patrick McCarthy (Latitude/Longitude, Enoch Kane) at the cozy Seaside Lounge, which also ultimately served as the mix-to-tape clubhouse for Claws."-Dust Dive